SSC CGL 2025 Tier-I · 24 September 2025, Shift 2 · English Comprehension · Question 4 of 100

We transcribed this text from the pictures on a candidate's response sheet for this shift; the answer is the key SSC colour-marked on that sheet. Solution last reviewed 13 September 2026.

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SSC does not publish CGL question papers or a public answer key. From 2025 the candidate response sheet prints every question and option as a picture, so the text here is transcribed from those pictures for this shift and checked against them independently; where the layout carries meaning, the picture is shown as well. Each answer is the key SSC colour-marked on that sheet. SSC released a tentative key for challenge and later its final one, both only to candidates behind a login, and the sheet does not say which of the two it carries. The solutions are written by UnlockIAS.

Choose the correct meaning of idiom: The writing on the wall

(a)A public confession
(b)A clear warning of inevitable doom
(c)A declaration of love
(d)A mark of brilliance

Answer

Why

Correct — B. The writing on the wall means a clear sign that failure or disaster is coming. You 'see the writing on the wall' when you recognize that something is about to end badly.

The phrase comes from the Book of Daniel, chapter 5: a hand writes on King Belshazzar's palace wall, and Daniel reads it as the end of his kingdom.

A clear warning of inevitable doom matches → option (b).

Why the others are wrong

(a)
A public confession — A public confession takes the wall literally, as a public place. The idiom is not about admitting a past act but about signs of what is coming.
(c)
A declaration of love — A declaration of love reads the phrase as graffiti. The idiom carries no romance: the writing on the wall is a warning of failure or ruin.
(d)
A mark of brilliance — A mark of brilliance turns the phrase into praise. The idiom predicts a downfall, the opposite of a sign of success.

Concept

An idiom's meaning cannot be built from its words. Taken literally, writing on a wall could be a notice, a confession or graffiti. The test is whether you know the fixed phrase.

This one keeps its Biblical origin. At Belshazzar's feast, words appear on the wall and Daniel interprets them: the king has been weighed and found wanting, and his kingdom will be divided. The king is killed that night.

So the phrase means a sign of approaching doom, there for anyone willing to read it.

Dictionaries also list the form the handwriting on the wall, with the same meaning.

Key facts

The writing on the wall: a sign that something bad, such as failure or ruin, is going to happen.
Usual frame: to see, or read, the writing on the wall.
Source: Book of Daniel, chapter 5, the feast of King Belshazzar.
Weighed and found wanting, judged and shown to be inadequate, comes from the same chapter.

Study next

Idioms from the Bible: feet of clay, a doubting Thomas, the prodigal sonIdioms of warning signs: a red flag, the calm before the storm

Common traps

Reading the phrase literally, as a public notice or a message someone wrote. The confession and love-note options rest on that literal reading.
Softening it to any warning at all. The phrase points to failure or ruin that is already on its way.

The same frame, 'Choose the correct meaning of idiom', appears at 12 Sep 2025, 09:00, English Q.2 (Hobson's choice, keyed No real choice at all) and 14 Sep 2025, 09:00, English Q.2 (Bury the hatchet, keyed To reconcile after a conflict).

Related PYQs

No directly related past PYQ was found.

Topic: Idioms and phrases — all 97 SSC CGL questions on it, every solved shift.